Actually I doubt about the actual function of abuuction information released on the weibo.I mean it's true that many of netizen,incluidng me,will repost such these information out of sympathy,but in what degree that would help to find the kids？Endless reposting must be concluded in someone's practial action to rescue those poor kids,maybe by specific authority.

Yes, and it’s true that child-trade is happening everyday, especially in the poverty stricken areas. Baby boys are in favor because they serve as first of all labor force where there is lack of farming machinery to make farming less stressed; secondly, baby boys are regarded as the one that carries the family line forwards, which is the core value of a male-dominant society with the male heir being entitled to property and land; thirdly, baby boys are safety guards of a big family with more than two generations under the same roof; and in a finally analysis, bearing baby boys is a symbol of piety to ancestors in traditional Asian countries.

Compared to what has been achieved in the last few decades of reform in China, effects of feudalism that focuses and is based on patriarchal clan system under blood relationships for thousands of years on people’s values and morality are hard to be over exaggerated. Simply put, few would be willing to leave his inheritance in the charge of someone else’s who has no blood links with him after life’s hard working in feudalist society. That said, families that are in want a baby boy are numerous, which is proof that the evil trade is driven by demand rather than supply. Tragedies occur no matter how many and to what extent government crackdown campaigns are launched.

On the other hand, those parents whose children have been trafficked are in part responsible for the capture. According to statistics released by public security department, children of migrant workers are most likely the prey as the cases take place more often in the rural-urban continuum where children are left alone around the rental house without supervision from parents and are away from police patrols.

As the Chinese New Year is around the corner, I sincerely hope that all those ‘kidnapped children’ will be rescued and reunited with their biological parents, albeit it’s impossible to see the end of such an evil deal in China nowadays. .

I've heard rumours of this problem. But it hadn't been officially recognised as (a bad enough) problem so I couldn't tell if this was true.

If this is happening, something is very wrong. What has happened to these people who trade in other people? Why has it become so zero-sum? If the CCP is good at anything, it's very good at changing social/cultural habits. Mao himself said that women hold up half of the sky. Why isn't it just as good to have girls as boys? Why is it so important to have boys that one can trade in the misery of others?

People need to know that making money, while a good thing, has limits. Murder for profits is wrong. This is on the same level of wrongness.

the child trafficking problem is real, not a rumor, and it was reported on CCTV before as I recall watching CCTV newscast last year or the year before when police broke a ring of culprits and rescued a dozen or more of childern aged from infants to young kids. cases of trafficking of rural young women for prostitution to overseas (by falsely promising them overseas jobs) were also reported when such cases were broken by police.
.
but I think it's been blown in foreign media way out of proportion for the population size of china. still, it's government's job and responsibility to see to it that no such case would occur.
.
an equally criminal and more sinister 'crime' is the deliberate abortion based on pre-natal determination of sex (such determination is illegal in china, as is in india also) and some infancides and desertions in rural areas. but such crimes have been curtailed greatly and the sex ratio inbalance has been reduced according to the last national census (conducted every 10 years).
.
one child policy must be painful, but it is almost a necessary measure to get out of poverty in developing economies.

from here to eternity ?
.
it's not that these pro-chinese guys cannot take some criticism or bashing, heck, they have been taking it for 200 years.
.
but TE's gang raping, oops strike that, gang firing in tandem of articles and articles on negative-ing china in rapid sequence in the past couple of weeks like brisk bazooka hurtlings by jihadists is daunting.
.
since them chinese are still cheap and dirty everything as many bashers here say, claim or imply, they ain't going to matter all that much anyway, surely TE or the interest it repreents needs not be so desperate to to come to this. right?
.
don't give them any break but do give thouself a break before being worn out by the fatigue syndrome of reading the stuff written, or being scared pant wet by your own imagination, or hallucination.

I'm a chinese girl.When I was young I think all the things our goverment did was right.They told me "one child“ policy is for us to have better education and give less pressure to our environment.But when I was 20,my mum told me I once have a little brother.and the local goverment force my mum to have an abortion .My mum had the abortion but she still miss her baby today.
I feel sorry for my mum,and begun to think was it right to force every family have one child.
Besides,Child trafficking is really rampant.i'm in city,so all I see is people buying children.Some people around me have bought a child and they somehow use unlegal way give the child a legal adopt certification.They treat the child like their own.I think taking their child away is not"no punishment
And there's other reason besides one child policy which made kidnapking so popular.Our environment and food are badly polluted in China.More and more young couples couldn't bearing.And if there's no child there's no family.They have to buy a child no matter how expensive

I am chinese,23,senior student in a university.Born and grow up in China,never been abroad.
I came here because our Graduate Candidate Test use a aticle of the econimist this year.And I find here some people know more about China than ourselves,it's amasing

well,thank you for point it out.Actually ,I'm not english majored.And I'm not sure the exact meaning of my commend.
I use a Chinese-English dictionary to help me write.You know for the same Chinese word there is several English word to choose.I choose them randomly .
But it's true several people around me bought a baby.I think it's not a serious problem.Because most of the buyers are richer than their nature parent.And they regards baby as their own.Most of the baby didn't remember their real parents,and some of them may never know they are bought all his life.

but you are no chinese.
you twist and turn your english writing to make it looks like chineseeeee, but it won't wash the way you wrote. I have seen your type, plenty.
.
you may bash china or others, just don't hide behind others doing it, you hear?

Really is my English that bad?twist and turn?I think my English is exellent.(^ ^)
But really,I am Chinese,and why should I bash China??I just told you something I konw.But for I see trade child is not a big deal.My mother's co-worker have bought one girl,My BF's neighbour has bought one boy too.Did you hear that there's many organization sending woman to USA to give birth?Did you know most of rich and powerful people sent their children abroad like US CA Australia and Britain?If you leave there you may find more and more chinese youngth.So it's nature to send child away for better life.My father is a adopt child,and he said in his time it's quite commom to give the child to a richer one when you can't offord to raise them.
And one child policy?Most of my friends don't have sisters and brothers.For nearly 20 years I think I'm lucky to be the only child,my mum and dad love me fully.But getting into a university,I found many student from rural area has sisters and brothers.And thier sister and brother also love them,which made me feel lonely.
There'a many problem in the China,I'm appreciate that you concern,also I find it's funny for you to worry about things which have no relevant to your life.Because these things seems not bother me.

Bashing? "China bashing" is just a made up concept designed to put people on the defensive. It's a psychological tactic to force commenters to atone for their own supposed faults when they have said or done nothing wrong. I'm going to criticise China as much as I want, and I'm going to praise it as much as I think it needs praising. Don't like it? Write a note to the UN.

I don't think she might be wrong saying she would like sisters and richer people are now using places like Britain to have a kid or just pay the tax.

But I believe One Birth (Why do people call it one child? I had childhood friends who had twin sister or brothers, government did not demand the families "select one") per family policy saved China. China's 1950s was not China of today, it was economically industrially backward and isolated from every country across the world.
Even today, a huge % of the population are still in poverty.

If the One Birth policy was not selected, China today might have ceased to exist.

Draconian? Perhaps. But the alternative of social panic due to lack of access to food and shelter would have been far worse. For all the west's bluster (especially from Christians) about how evil this policy is, no one offered any solutions on how would China (and indeed, the world) handle an additional 200 million people in the same period.

Then again, most people who bust China's chop are often the same people who believe an carpenter was able to feed thousands of people with a love of bread and two fish..

@ silent night,
.
the guy was obviously lying and contradicting himself. first he calimed 'one-child' is so bad all over china then he went on to say 'many students from rural area have sisters and brothers'. what gives?
.
.
@ fayren77:
.
I did not say your english is 'that bad', granted that it's not that good either, but that has no bearing to your right to post here.
.
what I raiesd there was that your 'twist and turn' to deliberately make your writing appear to be more awkward than you are otherwise, to show that you are chinese student---trying to gain some currency of your story.
.
next time you may bash all you like without identifying yourself being chinese trying to gain more sympathy. you ended up getting a lot more despises instead.

anyone can bash all s/he likes. but it's my right to rebute if it came to my attention and I happened to dislike it.
.
you think you can handle that regardless the size of brain?
.
UN he says, what an Xdiot.

I'm a chinese girl.When I was young I think all the things our goverment did was right.They told me "one child“ policy is for us to have better education and give less pressure to our environment.But when I was 20,my mum told me I once have a little brother.and the local goverment force my mum to have an abortion .My mum had the abortion but she still miss her baby today.

.
I feel sorry for my mum,and begun to think was it right to force every family have one child.

.
Besides,Child trafficking is really rampant.i'm in city,so all I see is people buying children.Some people around me have bought a child and they somehow use unlegal way give the child a legal adopt certification.They treat the child like their own.I think taking their child away is not"no punishment

.
And there's other reason besides one child policy which made kidnapking so popular.Our environment and food are badly polluted in China.More and more young couples couldn't bearing.And if there's no child there's no family.They have to buy a child no matter how expensive]

.

Human trafficking should be punishable by death. That would make sure that the guilty can never commit the same crime again. Meanwhile, China should encourage more legal adoptions so as to diminish the market for child-trafficking.

Actually, social media, especially Sina weibo played an important role in anti-abduction. There are a lot of kind people in Weibo help the policy to spread the missing children information as far as they can. The kind of social power provide the positive engergy for China Internet environment.

I basically agree with the the author's opinions in the article except one-child-policy.
In fact,in rural areas of China,half of population (7.5 billion, equivalent to 2.5 times of U.S.'s population) it is two-children-policy.Many families have more than two children in rural areas.
If " Mr Xiao estimates that the price of abducted boys has risen in recent years from around 40,000 yuan to about 90,000," is ture,that means it is meaningless to buy a child from child traffickers.In many rural areas of China,RMB 90,000 is enough to pay the penalty of policy violations(one-child-policy or two-children-policy with a few strings attached) .After you pay the penaltys,you can have more than two children.More penaltys,more Children.Actually one-child-policy or two-children-policy mean that rich families can have more children, poor will have less children.But now rich families often have less children than poor families in China.
In my opinion,the main reason of child trafficking is that infertile couples in China have an explosive increase because of the change of life-style and natural environment in last 20 years.The other is that the poor families which can not afford the penaltys want to get one more child by cheaper ways(buying or stealing).Certainly most children can get good care,even better than their parents,by buyers or recipients,but it still should be looked on as a serious crime.No buy,no trafficking.China also neen improve its adoption system,orphans will have better lifes in foster homes than do in orphanages.

Do you have any data to the "infertile couple" theory? From a statistical point of view, doesn't matter how many "infertile couples" you can dig up, birth rates will not be affected by infertility so easily when you factor in a population of 1.3B. Simple maths, no magic.

there isn't a special accurate survey data nationwide about infertile couple.Some surveies in some areas,city-wide or part of province-wide,show the proportion of infertile couple among all the couple is about 8%(lower) or 15%(higher).It is estimated by ACWF(All China Women's Federation)that more than 50 million population in China belong to infertile population, due to all kinds of reasons.
By the way,I correct a data above,"half of population,7.5 billion" should be "half of population,0.75 billion" in China.

I am not quite agreed with you. The problem, I guess, lies on the Chinese tradition. You know what, Chinese people still want to have a boy. By having a boy, they believe the family will pass to next generation (in Chinese we may say yangxu xianghuo). Girls, however, cannot. Thus, even though some couple have two children, if this two are girls, they might still want another one, of cause a boy. This mainly happens in rural areas according to most Chinese media. I, myself, have never heard any of these cases in my community.

Another reason, from my prospective， is that these people they may not have many education so they may not know it is a wrong thing to do. What in their mind is that they pay for it.

Mine has no confliction with yours. Maybe,my comment above shuld be in more detail.I have said in my comment above:"The other is that the poor families which can not afford the penaltys want to get one more child by cheaper ways(buying or stealing)."----- "one more child" often means a boy in less developed rural areas.But girls are not a few just as the article's photo shows.After all,in developed rural areas or cities,the penalty of policy violations,one-child-policy or two-children-policy with a few strings attached,is very high,relatively their family incomes and often get additional punishments such as losing your jobs if you serve in the government department or state-owned public institutions.

By this, I am in your side. Still, I was not quite agree with "the cheaper ways(buying or stealing)." Because it is not cheap as far as I am concerned. It costs a buyer several hundreds of thousands RMB, which is almost equal to or more than the penaltys. So, I think the reason they buy a child is they can give a birth to a son, you might say, or a daugter.

Wow amazing to see so many examples of tu quoque and ad hominem in so few posts.
**************************
"Thanks for providing an example to remind me."
.
You still need examples? so many examples should've trained you very well.

As a Chinese (I don't get paid 5mao, thanks), I don't mind the TE bringing up Child Snatching in China (And it is a huge problem), but to link it to Communist Government's one birth policy making this article nothing more than a second rated hit piece.

1) This problem is also huge in other part of Asia (If not the world), as noted by other posters here. Heck, at least in China the snatchers grab the babies after birth. Have you read about Americans who HACK apart pregnant women to steal their baby?

2) The one child policy is not to blame, since in India they often kidnap females for "brides" too. And India don't have a one child policy, but they also love to abort unwanted girls.

3) Also, child snatching existed before the one child policy, even in old Imperial days of China (IE my great-grandmother days), children snatching is something parents are often warned about. To say it happened only after 1949 is like saying slavery only happened after U.S achieved independence from Britain.

As a Chinese (I don't get paid 5mao, thanks),
**************************************
You don't have to explain, quote "5mao" has become the only comfort some people can have, so let them have it. As long as authoritarian media controls information and public opinions, westerners will never have idea what hit them, like it is still beyond my ability to understand how on earth they convinced politicians in west to use Tibet as a weapon against China.
.
---------------------------------
China's jumbo air freighter test flight a success.
.
China carries out anti-missile test.

Quote: This fallacy's use is staggeringly common during internet debates, where pseudo-intellectualism reigns supreme. A person will seek out and attack any logical fallacy you use and dismiss your argument out of hand, without ever addressing the proposition. Fairly often, you might spot someone who will not even bother explaining why the fallacy is appropriate in that context. Some of the possible causes of this phenomena include: they are being lazy and are just arguing by assertion, they are trying to distract from their argument and are poisoning the well, or they learnt a fancy new Latin phrase and want to use it regardless of its applicability. If they have incorrectly used the fallacy then they have committed the fallacy fallacy fallacy.

TE don't say many other nations haven't similar problems of child trafficking.It only says something ture already happened in China and hopes that it can get a good solution and be paid more attention.

..........hopes that it can get a good solution and be paid more attention.
********************************************
That is rarely what media cares, like media in Hong Kong doesn't give a damn about tens of thousands of people living in cages.
.
The priority is if the issue serves their political goals.
.
As long as authoritarian media controls public opinions, New Yorkers will never enjoy walking in central park at midnight, part of their right which authoritarian media never care.

You make an excellent point. Would you be kind enough to go and make a similar point at state-run newspapers such as "People's Eaily" and "China Daily" that turn out edition after edition of anti-West bias? Would you then provide a link to your published comment stating "stop demonising other countries, we do it to!"

Thank you, I look forward to seeing your call for unbiased balance published in a Chinese state-run newspaper.

I am a Canadian living in China. I am married to a Chinese wife. Our daughter is three years old. When she was born, my wife had to stay in a bed
in the hospital hallway. The hospital warned us to ensure that our baby was not stolen. A baby had been stolen a few weeks before. Of course I stayed awake beside my wife and child until they were able to move to a room 3 days later.
This is a major problem in China. It is kidnapping. The only solution is to treat it as such. The Chinese say, "Oh, the people who bought the child didn't have a son!" Bullshit!!! If the people who pay for a baby either an orphanage or a childless couple received an adequate penalty, they would not steal babies. The recipient needs to spend life in jail. They have stolen the life of the parents!!!!! Until China gets tough with the recipients they will continue to have this problem!!

Child abduction is a lucrative business to abductors, who are stereotypically low-educated, deprived and unable to find other legitimate ways to climbing up the social ladder. They are the root of the problem and accordingly should be targeted in the appropriate course of action. However, we are given the impression that the Chinese authorities do not show initiative and endeavor in tackling the problem. Instead, the responsibility is, to a certain extent, delegated to parents and the people concerned. This leaves the question of why the authorities are not keen...

The punishment for such crime in China is ridiculous, traffickers often get away with only few years, and the buyer left unpunished. If police were to check identity of the homeless children on the streets it might already have solven half the problems. This is plainly incompetent government which is not doing enough to stop a hedious and serious crime (many children died or made disable).

However, the TE is full of idiots who will be just happy to link anything to communist, one child policy, etc, never mind that child trafficking was not a problem at all when China was truly a communist country with one child policy (think of the late 70s).

"Mr Xiao, the parent, believes the authorities could be doing a lot more. Buyers of abducted children still often get away without punishment—they usually live in villages and sometimes enjoy protection from local officials."

-------Right,it is a very confusion for many people inclding me,why buyers of abducted children didn't get punishments? China government is too mild to do that for so long time.All buyers and local officials who give protections need face severe punishments.More child traffickers should be sentenced to death.Kill them,one bullet,one child trafficker.A truck of bullets are enough to eliminate all child traffickers and similar crimes in China.

The deep-rooted reason behind it is due to chinese government paying too much attention to economic development which is urban-oriented and extremely disproportionate but ingoring the synchronized development of rural areas. If sensitive, we can notice that back in 1970-1990, there were a lot fewer child trafficking cases. However, the fast-growing economy during last 2 decades is along with the growing trend of child trifficking as more and more migrant workers from rural areas have flown into cities seeking for jobs and left their families and childern unattended. Besides, compared with the number of children abducted from rural areas, the number of urban children abducted is quite low. As stated above, the chinese government should shift their foucses more from cities to rural areas to reach the relatively equal development between them.

as if running out of topic to bash, now they report pitty or pitiful crimes in china.
.
child trafficking is serious crimes in most countries, but no country can promise it has gotten rid of the crime completely for good. child trafficking, although a serious and despicable crime even for one single occurrence, is rarer compared to the population sie of china. just ask usa, they have cases of kid kidnapping all the time, yet small in percentage of th usa population.
.
like dredging with the big buckets of earth moving machinery, there are always spillovers falling through or dripping out as the bucket is lifting out its bucketful ashore, one shoud not use the crime of child trafficking to decry the one-chld policy, let alone bashing it.
.
by the way, I am of the opinion that anyone caught and convicted child and woman trafficking with due process of the law should be sentenced to death as the only allowed punishment, with no if or but.

as if running out of topic to bash, now they report pitty or pitiful crimes in china. I bet TE can pretty much write the same story for just about any other country simply by substituting only the names and country with that country's in the article.

Every time when Economist publishes article revealing China social/political issues, you can see so many Chinese-government sponsored net comment agents diligently defend their beloved communist party(government) and spread their propaganda.

Your post demonstrate why I found no reason to support your kind:
.
First, your kind won't be able to solve problems.
.
Second, my voice and opinions won't be respected by media or heard by public if your kind controls the media.

Did you read the comments? There is plenty of criticism from Chinese commentators, in fact the Chinese social media is forming a network to offer a civil solution, but don't let your bias get in the way. Cocaine is a helluva drug.

Not to take sides, but with several commentators of this story implicating the communist party for somehow using authoritarian control in causing Chinese parents to wish for a boy, no one is taking any notice of how the identical wish (for a male child) is held by parents in neighboring (Asian and developing nation status) countries, including India, Thailand, and Malaysia - to mention just a few. The desire for a male child is rooted in a deeply-set, cultural belief that has been passed down for generations within Asian culture.

To those commentators, I would say, "Think before you speak. Learn before you judge."

Maybe, but to say child snatching is a problem created by the Government's one birth policy is ludicrous. Child snatching has occurred often as well in "Free-to-breed" countries like India, and so are female abortions.

(note, is one birth, not one child. If you have twins they are not going to make you choose one)

Rampant child snatching IN CHINA is indeed caused by the government's one child policy. In the past, parents with girl children could keep on trying to give birth to their "retirement plan". The Chinese, who reasonably do not want to starve in old age, want a boy child period, no matter if it's biologically theirs or not.
IN INDIA, families only want OTHER PEOPLE'S girls. One's own female offspring is a liability.